Friday, March 28, 2008

According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 -- the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

The drop-off points to an economic slowdown on top of the secular challenges faced by the industry. The second worst decline in advertising revenue occurred in 2001 when it fell 9.0%.

Total advertising revenue in 2007 -- including online revenue -- decreased 7.9% to $45.3 billion compared to the prior year.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Barrels of marijuana worth an estimated $1-million, bundles of $2 -illion in cash, assault rifles, three grenade launchers and some brass knuckles were seized in the operation which mobilized 300 officers.

Along with the nearly 115 kilograms of pot, police also seized 10 luxury vehicles, including high-end SUVs and at least one sports car, a Ford GT worth $250,000.

Is it just me, or does that seem like a pretty small haul for the biggest guns/smokes/drugs pipeline in the country?

Apparently the mainstream media is still wondering, 180+ dead Tibetans later, if we should be boycotting the Chicom Olympics this year. They must be thinking, "Gee, we'll miss out on all that awesome ad revenue!"

By boycotting the opening ceremony -- and urging other nations to do the same -- Canada would help diminish the value of the Olympics as a propaganda tool for the Chinese government. Beijing is anxious for the event to be seen as a sort of coming-of-age party -- de facto proof that China has been accepted into the community of civilized nations. By boycotting the opening ceremonies, the message would be very different: We are sending our athletes to the Olympics because Beijing, regrettably, is the location the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected -- but we are holding our nose while doing so.

We should be prepared to do more, too. If China's actions in Tibet (or anywhere else) becoming bloodier --if we begin to witness atrocities on the scale of the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings -- then Canada should boycott the Games outright.

Personally, my boycott started when the IOC announced China as the location. I own not a single thing with the Olympic logo on it, I contribute nothing to any organization even peripherally associated with the Olympic movement. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

There is no compelling reason why we should overlook the bad behavior they have already perpetrated on their serf-like population, not to mention their appalling destruction of their own air and water supplies. If you pollute all the water with sulphuric acid and heavy metals, you think there might be a rice famine some day soon? Wouldn't be the first time, eh? Great Leap Forward ring a bell with anybody? Famine, government caused it on purpose, millions died?

That happened when I was a kid. This stuff is not ancient history my friends, this is not WWII atrocities gone moldy with age. This is recent stuff. The pricks who did it are not only still alive, they are still in the government and still doing it.

Bottom line my friends: The International Olympic Committee is happy to look the other way for tyrants and ALWAYS HAS BEEN. They had the Olympics in Berlin too one time, look how that turned out. Those linked rings represent collusion with oppressive dictators, not the "brotherhood of sport".

One does not engage evil, compromise with it, do business with it or even countenance its existence. One hunts it down and kills it. We should be laying siege to Beijing, not helping them stage a propaganda circus. There should be Canadian aircraft carriers in the China straits enforcing a blockade of their ports.

What's that? We don't have aircraft carriers you say? Yes I know. We used to, but now we don't. We used to do battle with tyrants as well. But now we buy all our manufactured goods from them.

Just imagine along with Uncle Phantom for a second, containers arriving addressed to Walmart. Instead of a big red star on the side there's a swastika. The goods weren't made by slave labor in Duckbill Province, China, they were made by slave labor in Eastern Europe. Instead of that unintelligible Chinese slogan on the side it says "Ein Volk, Ein Riche, Ein Fuhrer!" Or maybe "Arbeit Macht Frei.", I always liked that one. Kind of sums up the whole thing in a nice little package.

So why is it we don't have the HMCS Bonaventure II and a couple of sister ships plus escorts, loaded for bear and standing off the coast of Taiwan? Because for a loooong time the people who govern this country have found much in common with the guys who issue live ammo for crowd control in Tibet. Example of the week, the Canadian Human Rights Commission. A little cabal of racist hunters who view the rules of evidence as a detail and the presumption of innocence as joke. Check it out.

We aren't boycotting the Beijing Olympics because a large contingent of our civil servants like the way the Chicoms do business. They'd like to get all this "due process" crap out of the way and really get down to business. Because you know, there are limits to what you can say in a civilized society.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

In a rare moment of non-worship, the New York Slimes talks about Cuba and the computer "revolution" they are having.

“It passes from flash drive to flash drive,” said Ariel, 33, a computer programmer, who, like almost everyone else interviewed for this article, asked that his last name not be used for fear of political persecution. “This is going to get out of the government’s hands because the technology is moving so rapidly.”

Cuban officials have long limited the public’s access to the Internet and digital videos, tearing down unauthorized satellite dishes and keeping down the number of Internet cafes open to Cubans. Only one Internet cafe remains open in Old Havana, down from three a few years ago.

By fair means or foul, Cubans are getting access to The World, downloading it onto ram sticks, and secretly passing it around among themselves. Raoul Castro is sitting on a steam kettle. She's going to blow pretty soon. My totally wild assed guess is maybe he lasts five years. Ram sticks are getting bigger and cheaper every day, and there's the One Laptop Per Child program. Talk about subversive, holy crap Batman!

Maybe some enterprising soul could set up a WiFi antenna that can reach an OLPC laptop in Cuba, eh? Maybe a nice dirigible floating around the Florida coast...

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